(Reuters) – Chicago wheat edged higher on Wednesday, recouping some of last session’s losses on concerns over dry weather threatening the U.S. winter crop.
Soybeans were little changed, retaining Tuesday’s gains, while corn was flat with traders unwilling to drive prices higher ahead of a key U.S. Department of Agriculture report on Monday.
Chicago Board of Trade wheat has risen 18 percent this month. The most-active May contract is near its highest since June as dry weather threatens the U.S. winter crop, although supply prospects in other exporting regions look bright.
“The forecast is for poor rainfall for the hard red winter belt, particularly the southern Plains,” said Luke Mathews, a commodities strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
“We want to see seasonal conditions in the U.S. improve, but we must understand that the global wheat market is bigger than just the United States and global supply prospects still look relatively attractive for the 2014/15 season.”
Chicago Board Of Trade May wheat rose 0.4 percent to $7.10-3/4 a bushel by 0432 GMT. May corn was unchanged at $4.86-1/2 a bushel and May soybeans was flat at $14.28 a bushel.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will release its annual spring plantings and quarterly grain stocks reports on Monday, releases that typically spark wild gyrations in prices.
Investors who have made bullish bets on the commodities for most of the year are currently reluctant to expand their positions ahead of the reports. Analysts polled by Reuters expected the USDA to boost estimates for soybean acres at the expense of corn.
Warmer weather is forecast in the U.S. corn belt, while rains are expected on Wednesday in the parched winter wheat belt in the southern U.S. Plains, an agriculture meteorologist said.
But soil temperatures are still too cold for farmers in most areas to begin planting corn, said Drew Lerner, a meteorologist with World Weather Inc.
Private analytics firm Informa Economics cut its 2014 forecast for U.S. corn plantings to 93.029 million acres from 93.319 million, trade sources said on Tuesday. Informa also trimmed its soybean plantings estimate to 81.204 million acres from 81.264 million.
The U.S. corn market is also under pressure from China’s continued rejection of cargoes because of an unapproved variety of gene-altered grains.
China has turned away more U.S. corn after detecting the unapproved genetically modified strain in shipments, official news agency Xinhua reported on Monday, with buyers waiting for sales from the country’s huge state reserves or shifting to cheap grain from Ukraine.
